When I was 16, I was really lucky because my grandma decided that she wanted to buy a new car and instead of selling her old car she gave it to me for my birthday. It was like every 16 year-old's dream: to turn 16 and right off the bat have a great, gently used car ready for you to drive. Now, my car is pretty old, like almost as old as I am old, but its been doing pretty well over the years. I never had an issue bigger than needing an oil change or forgetting to turn my lights off and killing the battery.
My freshman and sophomore years of college I lived in the dorms and left my car at home, available for my younger sister to use in my absence. This year, my junior year, I moved off campus and got to bring my car with me to school. Suddenly things started to go wrong.
I got in my first accident, hitting an ice patch during a blizzard and ending up in a ditch. Thankfully everyone in the car was okay, but my car was not. It was a struggle just driving it the 20 minutes it took to get back home. The dials were acting crazy, it was blowing hot air even though the heat was cranked all the way up. The car actually turned off twice on the way home! I found out my car had a cracked head gasket and was leaking coolant. Not good. My dad being the great guy that he is replaced the head gasket and fixed my car over break.
What I learned from this: I found out that there is a jug under my car's hood that holds this stuff called cooling fluid. The cooling fluid runs through the engine and keeps it cool so that it doesn't overheat and shut off while you're driving. I learned that a head gasket is something you don't want to be cracked because it causes coolant to leak. I also learned how to check my coolant to make sure it is at the right level. My dad showed me how to check the levels of the fluids in my car and how to tell if they needed to be filled. I found out that mechanics will charge you $100 to just look at your car and tell you what is wrong with it and that they charge for labor so it's super handy to have a dad who is a mechanic in his free time. Shout out to you dad, you're the best!
The next thing that happened was that my breaks started to squeak. It started off an every once in a while occurrence, but began to happen every time I put pressure on my breaks. I had to bring my car home for my dad to look at and fix.
What I learned: I learned that there are these things called break pads that can get worn down and cause the breaks to grind. Breaks are more complicated that I had thought. I also learned that when my car starts making weird noises to call my dad because he knows everything
After that happened with my car I was pretty sure that nothing else could possibly go wrong. I was wrong. All of a sudden my steering wheel became increasingly hard to turn until it got to a point where I couldn't move it at all. We found out after my dad replaced the main connector that there was a hole in the tubing and until it was fixed, the power steering fluid would just empty out of its jug under the hood. This resulted in a trip to the mechanic because even my dad couldn't fix it.
What I learned: I learned how to tell when my power steering is going out and how to check the levels of it under the hood. I learned where to buy it at the store and how much to put in it. I also learned how to check to see if it is leaking.
After that I was like this is the last of my car troubles until at least the end of the school year. Sadly, I was mistaken again. I brought my car home from the mechanics and when I went to drive it later that day, it wouldn't turn on. I had to get it jumped to turn on but even after that, once I turned it off again, it would not start.
What I learned: I learned how to jump start a car.
This has been a long year for me and my car, but every time it breaks down, I learn something new.
